Learn how the E-N crime team does their jobs and read about the quirky characters they encounter and the sometimes bizarre things that can happen at a crime scene that don't make it into their stories.

Brian Chasnoff: A Simple Reason

It lies in a field, felled by bullets, within the boundaries of an East Side park that fringes a public housing complex called Sutton Homes. A clan of about 15 onlookers, ranging from young boys to middle-aged women, sits on and mills around a set of bleachers beside the field.

A San Antonio police officer keeps them all at a significant distance from the slain man, causing curiosity about his identity to simmer. An hour passes. Some of the onlookers, including the young girl, mention their desire to get closer.

With undisguised disgust and reproach coloring his voice, the officer suddenly blurts, “Why do you all want to see a dead body?”

The crowd quiets down, but about 10 minutes later the officer handcuffs the 14-year-old girl. (This reporter did not witness the initial exchange between the officer and the girl, but her friends said the officer had not allowed her to see the body and detained her after she protested in a rude manner. A sergeant at the scene would not comment on the incident.)

The officer places the girl in the back of his cruiser, where they sit for about 10 minutes before driving toward the dead man in the field. The girl’s mother emerges from the housing complex and walks across the field toward the body to confer with the officer about her daughter. Soon the strange scenario takes a twist.

From a distance, the onlookers watch as the young girl and her mother walk with police over to the body. The mother bursts loudly into tears. The 14-year-old girl is choked by hysteria.

The dead man — anonymous for more than an hour while his friends were kept at a distance — is the mother’s boyfriend, the onlookers tell reporters.

Grief washes over the onlookers who knew the slain man. One woman offers the now-absent police officer her own reproachful quip.